FIMS Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-2017
Journal
All Azimuth
First Page
1
URL with Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.20991/allazimuth.321794
Last Page
16
Abstract
This essay presents a critical and reflexive assessment of contemporary efforts
to innovate the measurement and evaluation of public diplomacy. Analyzing a
recent and pivotal report called “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy,” it explains
how the institutional and ideological residue of the Cold War underwrites
these initiatives in the context of American activities in its contemporary “War
on Terror.” Inspired by Marx’s concept of the fetish—n under-represented
conceptual approach to public diplomacy research—he authors critique
the thinking of public diplomacy scholars and officials, arguing that both an
omnipresent past and a powerful form of technological fetishism are discernible
in the “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy” report. An outcome of the type of
thinking represented in the report, they conclude, has been the pervasiveness of
contradictions and, in this area of foreign policy, disempowering implications.
Citation of this paper:
Hamilton Bean and Edward Comor, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: A Critical and Reflexive Assessment,” All Azimuth 0, no. 0 (2017): 1-16, doi: 10.20991/allazimuth.321794
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